


Four Seasons

by Tat_Tat



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 04:39:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5403320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tat_Tat/pseuds/Tat_Tat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of oneshots and drabbles for each episode of the mini series Stakes. Has some Bubbline but the pairiing isn't the main focus, mostly gen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Marceline the Vampire Queen**

They never did get any sleep. Marceline was nocturnal and Princess Bubblegum was a workaholic. Even when she had the time, the princess had difficulty sleeping. Marceline said that one of the reasons Bubblegum was ‘cool’ was because she could always count on her to be awake. Bubblegum wasn’t sure what to make of that.

The dawn was breaking and she still wasn’t tired. They had spent all night talking under the covers, playing footsie and sharing secrets. Marceline sang her a lullaby to try to coax her to sleep. It hadn’t helped, but she always liked to hear her sing.

Marceline yawned, stretching like a black cat. The sun was starting to warm the room, light creeping in. Princess Bubblegum drew the covers over them both. “Hey, cover up, the sun is coming in.”

/

**Everything Stays**

She found Schwable after Simon left. She was eating cold fries and lukewarm hot wings, licking the juices off her fingers when the poodle peered up from out of an upturned garbage can. 

He gave a tentative sniff to her, and a more confident sniff towards the food in her hands. He sat in front of her and wagged his tail and even though she wasn’t full, she gave him the rest anyways. 

“I always wanted a dog,” she said, scratching behind his ears.


	2. Chapter 2

**Vamps About**

They made a fine band when they worked together. The Empress had her glass harmonica, sounding like raindrops on the window pane, and the Hierophant ran his fingers over the balalaika, playing an old-fashioned melody. The Fool was serious rarely, especially so when he played the bongo. The Moon liked peacefulness and her solitude; often they played without her flute. They always felt like something was missing those times. Even though it was an instrument, it was strange to see her make a sound at all. Her silence disquieted The Fool, who overcompensated by being rowdier than ever.

The Vampire King could take or leave their presence. He preferred animals. They argued less, were more honest. After setting his harmonica down while The Empress complained about her standards, he waltzed with the cow. It was a rather pretty cow, and after he lined the animal’s eyes with kohl he found them resplendent. He couldn’t help but sink his teeth into that spotted neck. The cow may have said something, and The Empress’s voice and her thoughts were muddled in the forest. Closing his eyes, The Vampire King heard a sharper, feverish voice. Sniffing, he could smell the other presence’s fear and prodding into their mind he learned their name: Jake. He smiled. In his prying, he learned Jake was a friend of Marceline’s. That made things easy.

The Empress stopped talking, stomping away towards the snow-capped mountains, and the Hierophant and The Moon also took their own paths, leaving The Vampire King and The Fool, and the cow in the King's arms. Jake had run, straight to Marceline he imagined. A pity their band had broke up, he thought. He wanted to know what she thought of their sound.

/

**The Empress Eyes**

The Ice King tossed and turned in his sleep. In his dreams the Earl of Lemongrab and Lemongrab II were listening to him read volume after volume of his Fionna and Cake books.

“Unacceptable. Unacceptable,” they said in unison and the Ice King would fumble franticly for another tale to curry their favor. But it was all the same: unacceptable.


	3. Chapter 3

**May I Come In?**

The princess and her friends were out and in the meantime Peppermint Butler busied himself. He tidied the modest cabin, fluffed the pillows three times, and put a pot of chicken stock simmering in the fireplace. He wasn’t sure if he was going to make dinner or a batch of poison. He considered doing both, but not with the same pot. Maybe.

He mulled over this, taking a sip from the wooden spoon. He held it clenched in his teeth as he stoked the fire and he finally decided what to make: dinner or poison. But then there was a knock at the door and he forgot.

/

**Take Her Back**

The hair was as thin and long as one of her guitar strings. Princess Bubblegum held it taut, pinched between her fingers. 

Marceline was rubbing her head where the princess had pulled it free, wincing and agitated. “Bonnie! What the stuff. . .”

She opened her mouth and for a moment there were barking noises, but then she spoke normally, smiling. “A gray hair.”

She passed it to her and Marceline stared at it. “Huh. I’m really getting old.” 

She had hardly noticed. When she first transitioned back to mortality, she had felt her skin begin to age, but she had become desensitized to that within a month. The gray hair was a surprise, the first sign of aging since then, at least that she'd noticed.

She wrapped the silver hair around her finger and watched it fall until it disappeared like sleight of hand.

Then she was outside, a bouquet of flowers in her hand, and Simon and Betty answered the door, not a wrinkle or gray hair in place. No missing hairs either. They were as prim as she remembered, unchanging like Princess Bubblegum. She didn’t second-guess this, or when the pie Betty was holding spoke. A lot of weird things were happening in her dream, but the only strangeness she could see was that while she grew old, everything and everyone stayed the same.


	4. Chapter 4

**Checkmate**

Her most vivid memory of food before she became a vampire was the dry, limp, cold fries she had found in a diner. She had only eaten one and deemed it edible enough, then went to find ketchup, but when she came back her dad had eaten them all. Why was it that the bad memories were the ones that stuck? It was like used gum stuck to the underside of a table, hard to scrape off.

Shades of red were fine enough, but she often wished she could eat ‘normal’ food with her friends. She knew Princess Bubblegum was sweet, but couldn’t taste it. All she tasted was pink those times they were alone. 

Before she became human again, vibrating with anticipation in Princess Bubblegum’s machine to drain her vampirism, Marceline looked at the nape of her neck and thought: when this is done. 

But things got too exciting after that and now she was a vampire again. Finn and Jake said they stocked her fridge with lipstick. The gesture was sweet but only enforced that she wouldn’t be able to eat sushi and donuts again. But she still had the memory of cold fries and that was something. As for Princess Bubblegum, she would just have to take her word.

X

**The Dark Cloud**

“Let’s go in the garden. . .” she began to sing, floating up, her hair like a black cloak trailing behind her. Her eyes were closed. Beneath her eyelids she thought of a different time, a place: in a beaten trailer with duct tape holding the couch arms in place, her mother’s embrace.

When she finished, Princess Bubblegum looked from her book and said, “You’ve been playing that song a lot.”

“I have?”

She had.

“Is it new?” 

Marceline hesitated, drifting down. “Not really,” she admitted.

“Oh. It’s just-- I’ve never heard it before. I thought it was something you were working on.”

“Kinda,” Marceline admitted again. She could feel the princess studying her face and turned away. 

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. It’s just. . . after everything that happened I’ve been thinking a lot. About things.”

Princess Bubblegum nodded. Marceline noticed that she had started to reach for her hand but second-guessed herself and pulled her hand away.

“It doesn’t bother you? The song?”

She shook her head and after a little bit of quiet she said: “I’d like you to play it again-- if that’s all right.”

A smirk pulled the corner of Marceline’s mouth, dismantling her unease. She drifted down until she was sitting on the couch next to Princess Bubblegum, her fingers working the first few chords to the song. And she sang, softer than before, and leaned against the princess, distracting her from her book. Princess Bubblegum didn’t mind. She sang too, under her breath.


End file.
